Understanding school boards and their use of different models of governance

Abstract

In this article, the authors apply Mel Gill’s (2002) description of governance model types to a national sample of school board members in the United States. The authors find that the majority of school board members take a policy-driven approach to board governance, while a substantial percentage take a traditional approach that delegates clear authority to the organization executive. Multinomial-logistic regression analysis and a series of analysis of variance tests are used to identify the structural and group dynamic differences between difference governance model types. The authors find that governance models have an impact on the group dynamics of organizations and that board approaches to governance differ substantially by area, concluding that future studies of governance models should consider the differences in governance strategies across functional areas.